(Click on the images to enlarge) I've always wondered what the circumstances were that caused False Whitehead Harbor, near my home on the lower west side of Penobscot Bay, to get its name. Did some hapless sailor, working his way down the Muscle Ridge Channel, actually mistake the north side of Sprucehead Island for the north side of Whitehead, the next island to the southwestward? Did this poor innocent voyager cast his anchor in the evening, sleep through the night, row ashore in the morning, and discover that he wasn't where he thought he was? Or could it have been worse than that? Could it have been a foggy day, and could our sailor have cut the corner of the island fine, thinking he would make an anchorage between tiny Seal Island and the northeast corner of Whitehead, and instead hit the reef that sticks a long way out from the northeast corner of Sprucehead?  read more »